Safe Sexting: The Solution Our Children Deserve

August 14, 2016

3 min read

A city “struck by scandal.” More like an atomic bomb of despair, confusion, and shock for all these parents finding out that naked pictures of their young kids are circulating around the school and beyond.

And what does the token liberal academic have to recommend, what expert words of wisdom can be imparted to help parents understand the situation and prevent this disaster from ever happening again?

“Amy Adele Hasinoff, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Denver and the author of a new book, “Sexting Panic,” contends that schools need to find new ways to talk to students about the issue. Rather than just demanding that students abstain from sending risqué images, she said, educators should aim for open conversations that involve guidance in “safer sexting” with trusted partners.”

Yes! Safe sexting! Why hasn’t anyone recommended this before?! Teach your kids to be responsible about taking photos of their genitalia and sending them to other children who obviously have the maturity to know exactly how to handle such sexual material. Nothing more healthy than not only encouraging your kids’ consumption of pornography but also having them actively making it for the consumption of others.

And I know what some of you may be thinking. Children shouldn’t be taking and trading naked pictures of themselves in the first place. To that I say, it’s 2015! Get with the program! If two or more 12 year-olds mutually consent to send each other nude photos of themselves, what harm could come from that as long as they’re responsible, etc.? Only a prude or someone stuck in the Victorian age would object to such an innocent sex-positive experience.

On a more serious note, look how quickly and seamlessly it is asserted that it is impractical and ineffective to just tell children to abstain. We are supposed to just accept that without any explanation or justification, which is kinda hilarious given that just 5 or 10 or 20 years ago, kids weren’t participating in massive nude picture sharing rings and mass distributing pictures of their privates to their schools. Fast forward a few years and we’re supposed to treat this like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Kids will be kids! You know kids, can’t stop those little rascals from exposing themselves to each other in the most indecent and indiscriminate ways!

Of course, it is hard to miss the parallels here with the campaign against “abstinence-only” sex education that happened in our recent history. There too, we were told that it is impossible to expect that children will refrain from sex. The response to that is simple. Yes, abstinence-only education can work and does work. The fact that it doesn’t work in today’s society is not a failure on the part of the education itself, which teaches children to abstain, but a failure on the part of music, TV, advertisements, popular culture, etc., that contravene that education for every waking moments of a child’s life.

TL;DR: My kids are not getting smartphones until they go to college inshaAllah.

Safe Sexting: The Solution Our Children DeserveA city "struck by scandal." More like an atomic bomb of despair,…